By Luke Tamborinyoka
HARARE – Ladies and gentlemen, the results of the “election” of July 31, 2013 are now out.
The election results are not the fudged figures announced by the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission, but the practical reality of the acute suffering that Zimbabweans are experiencing every day.
I spent my childhood in the rural areas as a village boy in my home area at Tamborenyoka Village in ward three of Goromonzi West constituency in Domboshava.
I have continued to interact with both villagers in my rural home and ordinary residents in urban areas, especially in Chitungwiza where I have lived the other half of my life.
What is clear for ordinary Zimbabweans is that things are not looking good at all and as a country, we are headed for a serious economic disaster if urgent action is not taken to rescue the situation.
Forget the stability and progress we experienced when Morgan Tsvangirai and team where in government, the country is now fast accelerating towards an economic implosion, thanks to the charade of July 2013 which returned a clueless team in government, unmitigated by the capacity and craft competence associated with the days of the inclusive government.
Closeted in their offices and stuck in the now boring script of ZimLiability, otherwise called ZimAsset, those in charge of this country are clueless on how to solve the country’s myriad problems.
Barely a year after the election, the true results of that charade are now out!
Our government cannot even pay its own workers.
Pay days of government workers have now been postponed and changed countless times.
In fact, according to the recently released schedule, some civil servants will receive their December salaries way after Christmas.
Our roads are in a poor state. It takes me almost two hours to drive to my rural home only 42 kilometres outside Harare because of the poor state of the 12 kilometres of the dusty patch of the road.
While Zinara continues to collect people’s money on the country’s tollgates, the state of our roads nationwide is telling its own story.
Despite the much-vaunted bhora mugedhi, there is no dhora mubhegi.
Zimbabweans are broke as the economic crisis bites. They are salivating over the goods on the supermarket shelves, which they cannot buy because of the acute deflation arresting this country.
Our 90-year-old analogue President in this digital age is so much out of touch that he appears only keen on appropriating the whole of the Mazowe area for himself and his family, displacing thousands of people in the process.
While the country is burning, the man in charge priorities going to the Vatican and other international summits, and this at a time his own government does not even have an idea of where to get the next pay cheque for its workers.
With an economy on the ropes, the politically-lost among us give you the impression that the man at the centre of the national crisis is Morgan Tsvangirai, whom they continue to demonise 10 months after claiming he was utterly vanquished.
Some even come up with strategic papers that have nothing to do with the clueless government in charge, but everything to do with Morgan Tsvangirai as if he is the single human impediment to national progress!
The front page stories in the mainstream media give us the impression that while the country is burning, a whole government has decided to expend its energy and resources trying to unmask a Facebook character called Baba Jukwa, as if that is the critical national conundrum that is at the centre of our national crisis.
We are a country at the deep end. And that is the true result of last year’s election, a practical reality far removed from the fudged figures announced by the Electoral Commission; indeed the Commission which selected a leader for us!
It was a selection which brought new lingo in the country’s diction; a new diction that includes words like “Nikuv” and “ZimAsset.”
Yes, our bogus election that led to Robert Mugabe being sworn in as leader of this country had everything to do with Nikuv, the parallel of which has its genesis in the Bible, at least according to the book of Genesis.
That story in Genesis 27 is a story of deception; the story of the anointment of the wrong man when Jacob stole his father’s mandate and received the blessing meant for his brother, Essau.
While the person at the centre of that deception was a woman called Rebecca, for my own safety, I will not reveal the woman at the helm of the Electoral Commission that selected Mr Mugabe, the latter-day Jacob who received the inauguration blessing meant for his brother!
That election was indeed a monumental fraud, which is why the 40 odd Zanu PF supporters who came to celebrate the election result outside my house in Chitungwiza in August last year were chased away by hundreds of disgruntled Zimbabweans in my neighbourhood.
Outside my house, on that day, those celebrating were outnumbered by those in mourning.
There were more “losers” than “victors” outside my gate, obva watoshaya kuti zvinhu zvacho zviri kumbofamba sei! (All circus)
Civil servants are suffering but they were promised PDL-linked salaries that have not come!
Our youths are wallowing in abject poverty, with no single job created despite the promise to create 2,2 million jobs by 2015!
The nation is broke, the economy is on the canvas and ordinary people are suffering, surviving on far much less than $1 a day.
The reason is because we all know what happens when you steal a mandate. Chekuba hachipfumisi (Stolen booty won’t take you far).
And yes, the current unnerving reality of our national situation is the true result of the last “election” in which we broke all records and announced an analogue, 90-year President as our leader in this brave, digital age.
Indeed, the election results are now out!
*Luke Tamborinyoka is the spokesperson to MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai. But he writes here in his capacity as the Director of Information and Publicity for the Movement for Democratic Change.
